NEGOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has finally won a concession from Sri Lanka's government after widespread criticism of the investigation into the deadly Easter Sunday attacks.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced Sept. 6 that a new independent commission would be appointed as a direct result of the cardinal's plea, reported ucanews.com.

Cardinal Ranjith, president of the Sri Lankan bishops' conference, had appealed for such a commission to bring impartiality and progress to the police investigation, ucanews.com reported. The bishops had urged the government to treat their demand as a matter of the utmost urgency.

A nine-person group of suicide bombers affiliated with local Islamist extremist group National Thowheed Jamath blasted three churches and three luxury hotels April 21, killing 259 people, including 37 foreign nationals, and wounding at least 500. Many Christians have been too scared to attend church since the attacks.

Cardinal Ranjith insisted he would not give up his efforts to find out the culprits behind the attacks.

President's Counsel Shamil Perera, appearing on the cardinal's behalf, told the Supreme Court Sept. 4 that if intelligence information had been disseminated before the attack, church officials could have canceled the ill-fated Easter services. Perera told the court that fundamental freedoms had been violated by the failure to act on essential information.

Ruwan Gunasekara, police spokesman, nevertheless insisted they had been making progress and revealed that 293 people had been arrested.

"There are 178 held on detention orders and a further 115 suspects have been remanded in custody," he said.

Gunasekara also said police had frozen hundreds of bank accounts belonging to 41 suspects containing $740,330.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesian police have arrested six terrorist suspects, two of whom have been linked to last year's bombings at three churches in Surabaya, the country's second-largest city.

Police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo told reporters during an Aug. 26 media briefing that the arrests were made in mid-August in several locations in East Java province and that all those arrested were members of the Islamic State-affiliated group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, reported ucanews.com.

The group was behind the suicide bombings at Santa Maria Catholic Church and two Protestant churches May 13, 2018. Nineteen people were killed and dozens were injured after members of a single family, including young children, carried out the bombings.

Another attack on the city police headquarters the following day by another family left at least four dead and 10 injured.

Hanafi Abu Zufar, 39, a suspected JAD cell leader in Madura in East Java, and Salman, 31, a suspected cell leader in Lamongan, also in East Java, were arrested Aug. 22.

"Both are closely linked to the Surabaya bombings," Prasetyo told reporters. "At least, they knew of the plan to launch the attacks in Surabaya."

The arrest of the two cell leaders brings the number of suspects arrested in connection with the Surabaya bombings to more than 200, according to police.

Prasetyo said three other suspects were arrested Aug. 23 in Blitar, while a sixth suspect was apprehended after he allegedly robbed a gold shop in East Java's Magetan district.

"He claimed to be an ISIS sympathizer and said robbing the gold shop was to get funds to go to Syria," Prasetyo said.

A police search of his home uncovered Molotov cocktails, homemade rifles, arrows, machetes, crowbars and firecrackers.

Stanislaus Riyanta, an intelligence analyst from the University of Indonesia, told ucanews.com that the arrests suggested that JAD remained a significant threat in Indonesia.

"As long as the JAD network is still strong, threats against places of worship remain high," he said.

The Indonesian government introduced tougher anti-terrorism laws soon after the Surabaya bombings. They grant the police wider powers when arresting and detaining suspected terrorists. Police are allowed to detain suspects for 14 days before charging them with a crime, while pre-trial detention can last up to nine months.

“My concern is for the faith of our people and the offence that this brings to their love of and reverence for the Eucharist,” said Archbishop Terrence Prendergast in an e-mail interview.

The black mass, sponsored by the Satanic Temple in Canada, will take place at 10 p.m. at The Koven, a heavy metal bar and restaurant only a few blocks from Notre Dame Cathedral and Basilica.

Nicholas Marc, the national co-ordinator for the Satanic Temple in Canada, and organizer of the event told Global News he believes the event will “be the first organized public black mass in Canadian history.”

“Essentially, it involves using traditional symbols and inverting them to create a ritual that is meant to be the opposite of traditional mass,” Marc told Global News.

“To tamper with and mock the Mass — which is what this satanic ritual does — is hateful and will affect more than those who participate in it,” said Prendergast. “It will say loudly that the central belief of Christians should not be shown respect, as we would expect respect to be shown to the Jewish Torah, to the Muslim Koran and to the sacred objects of other faiths.

“Such a ritual sends the wrong message that we’re tolerant of what is in effect hate speech, which this has become by the widespread publicity being given to it,” the archbishop said.

The leader of Ottawa’s Catholics said inquiries were made as to whether organizers were using a consecrated host for the ritual, and organizers said none would be used. The archbishop expressed relief at this news and urged priests and Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion to be vigilant that communicants consume the host as soon as they receive communion.

“The Blessed Sacrament is given to those with faith in Christ’s presence in the Eucharistic host so that they may, by consuming it, achieve communion with Our Lord,” said the archbishop, pointing out the Catholic faith teaches the consecrated bread and wine in Communion are not mere symbols, but Christ’s “Real Presence” in the Eucharist.

A recent Pew Research study that revealed 70 per cent of American Catholics believe the bread and wine used in Mass are only symbols of Jesus.

For Catholics who regularly attend Mass at least weekly, however, only 37 per cent are confused about this central teaching, the Pew study showed.

“Catholic tradition has developed a special terminology — ‘transubstantiation’ — to express that the appearances of bread and wine are only that — appearances — and that the reality, the substance, is now truly the Body and Blood of Our Lord, who gives Himself to us as food on the journey to eternal life,” the archbishop said.

"...I am asking intercessory prayer groups to pray for those planning to take part in this [black mass] event so that they turn away from the path of darkness and turn instead towards the light of faith."

- Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa

Prendergast said he had been counselled to say nothing about the Black Mass because the organizers are “merely seeking publicity.”

“But I need to be concerned for my own people, who would be shocked to think this matter was publicized and we did nothing about it.”

According to the Global News report, the Satanic Temple is growing in Canada and boasts about 100,000 people worldwide, with many chapters in the United States. Reportedly, its members tend to be atheists and secularists who believe Satan is a symbol and not a real being.

The archbishop warns that any dabbling in occult practices “has the potential of opening a spiritual doorway into the evil realm — giving demonic spirits permission, in other words — to infest our city with negative and evil energies.”

“People have expressed surprise that Pope Francis so often refers to the devil at work in our world as he and his minions attempt to thwart the good that Christians and the Church are committed to,” he said. “But, as St. Paul says, our spiritual battle is not merely against flesh and blood — that is to say, other human beings who are opposed to the Gospel message, but ‘against principalities and powers, against the dark rulers of this world,’ that is rebellious angels who continue to attempt to undermine the spread of God’s Kingdom in human hearts.”

The archbishop said he will be offering a Mass of Reparation for the event on the morning of Aug. 17.

“Of course, we have many spiritual means and I am asking intercessory prayer groups to pray for those planning to take part in this event so that they turn away from the path of darkness and turn instead towards the light of faith.

“We need to pray in reparation for the spiritual harm that is being planned, and that God would turn this blasphemous project into an occasion of grace,” he said, noting he is encouraging pastors to alert the faithful in their parishes and to offer Mass, holy hours and prayers in reparation.

WASHINGTON -- Iraqi Christians face "extinction" unless Islam recognizes the fundamental equality of all people and takes steps to overcome violent factions that seek to force religious minorities from the country, said Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Irbil.

"The truth is that there is a foundational crisis within Islam itself, and if this crisis is not acknowledged, addressed and fixed, then there can be no future for civil society in the Middle East or indeed anywhere Islam brings itself to bear upon a host nation," Archbishop Warda told Aid to the Church in Need.

The archbishop voiced his concerns in an interview, the transcript of which was released by the organization Aug. 6, the fifth anniversary of the Islamic State group overrunning Christian communities on the Ninevah Plain in northern Iraq.

The Islamic State group's violence "shocked the conscience of the world" as well as Islamic majority nations, Archbishop Warda said.

"The question now is whether or not Islam will continue on a political trajectory, in which sharia is the basis for civil law and nearly every aspect of life is circumscribed by religion, or whether a more tolerant movement will develop," he said.

The archbishop also expressed concern that while the Islamic State group has been defeated in Iraq, the "idea of the re-establishment of the Caliphate" has not subsided.

"And with this idea of the caliphate there come all the formal historical structures of intentional inequality and discrimination against non-Muslims," he added. "We see leaders in other countries in the Middle East who are clearly acting in a way consistent with the re-establishment of the caliphate."

When Islamic State forces stormed the Ninevah Plain in August 2014 more than 125,000 Christians fled their historic homes of 14 centuries to communities farther south in Iraq. Archbishop Warda said those who left lost their homes, livelihoods, churches and monasteries and, most importantly, their dignity.

Aid to the Church in Need said that about 40,000 Christians have returned to the Ninevah Plain in an attempt to rebuild their lives. The remaining 85,000 either have stayed in Irbil or left Iraq altogether.

Prior to the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the country was home to as many as 1.5 million Christian, according to the archbishop, while today perhaps 250,000 remain.

Archbishop Warda said the declining number of Christians in northern Iraq follows a long trend of people being forced to leave their traditional homelands.

"With each successive cycle the number of Christians drops, till today we are at the point of extinction," he said. "Argue as you will, but extinction is coming and then what will anyone say? That we were made extinct by natural disaster, or gentle migration? That the ISIS attacks were unexpected, and that we were taken by surprise?

"That is what the media will say. Or will the truth emerge after our disappearance: that we were persistently and steadily eliminated over the course of 1,400 years by a belief system which allowed for recurring cycles of violence against Christians, like the Ottoman genocide of 1916 to 1922," he said.

Archbishop Warda called on the world to act to end violence and discrimination against innocent Christians and members of other minority religious communities in the war-torn country.

"The entire world faces a moment of truth," he said. "Will a peaceful and innocent people continue to be persecuted and eliminated because of their faith? For the sake of not wanting to speak the truth to the persecutors, will the world be complicit in our elimination?

"The world should understand that on our path to extinction we will not go quietly any longer," he continued. "From this point onward, we will speak the truth, and live out the truth, in full embrace of our Christian witness and mission, so that, if someday we are gone, no one will be able to ask: how did this happen?"

BANGKOK, Thailand -- It’s not Joshua’s fault. He was born into statelessness more than three years ago in Bangkok and immediately suffered a stroke that left him seriously brain damaged. But Joshua scares the rest of his family daily.

The problem is, Joshua wants to go outside. Sometimes he panics when he can’t see his father. Sometimes he gets frustrated with his mother, or scared by a noise outside. Then he cries. He screams. He demands attention.

Attention is the one thing Joshua’s family never wants. There are seven of them living in a one-room apartment with two beds, a desk and two chairs — where they cook chicken biryani for a guest on an electric ring on the floor and use the big bed as their dining room table.

They don’t go outside any more than they have to. It’s seven of them all day, every day occupying less than 400 square feet, including the tiny balcony where they air out their bed sheets. They know they are living in Thailand illegally, but returning home to Pakistan is not an option with a possible death sentence hanging over them under the country’s blasphemy laws. They know Royal Thai Immigration police are sweeping through neighbourhoods, throwing illegals into jail cells. They know the head of Thai Immigration, Lt. Gen. Sompong Chingduang, again warned landlords July 20 to report any foreigners living in their buildings or face stiff fines.

It takes just one scared landlord, one phone call, for Joshua’s family to end up in jail cells at the Immigration Detention Centre in downtown Bangkok.

So they don’t want to be noticed.

They may be illegal migrants in Thailand, but in Canada and most other countries Joshua’s family would be considered refugees. Thailand never signed the 1951 Convention on Refugees, so about 1,500 Pakistani Christians who are in Bangkok and seeking asylum are simply lumped in with anybody else who has overstayed their tourist visa. From the perspective of Thai law, they are a criminal nuisance.

“Every single day I fear being arrested. I am living in darkness, without hope,” Joshua’s grandfather told The Catholic Register.

Joshua’s family is one of 63 who were interviewed in Bangkok the week of July 14 by the Office for Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto (ORAT) — giving the families a chance to be privately sponsored for resettlement in Canada. It will require a parish, a diocese or some other configuration of Catholics to raise money and make the volunteer commitment, but Canada is perhaps their best and possibly their only hope of creating a normal life and future.

PAKISTAN’S BLASPHEMY laws — meant to combat any show of comptempt toward religion — have grown increasingly harsh since they were inherited from British colonial rule. Beginning with constitutional amendments of 1974 and a program of “Islamicization” of the legal code, Pakistan’s laws became more severe through the 1980s, acquiring the death penalty in 1986.

According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2019 annual report, there have been 62 documented cases of murder at the hands of vigilante mobs inspired by Pakistan’s blasphemy laws since 1990.

Many of the Pakistani Christian refugee families in Thailand would face the death penalty under Pakistan’s blasphemy law if they were ever returned home. Many of them have been hunted by vigilante, jihadi assassins.

The Register was not permitted to use real names or take identifying photos of most people interviewed for this story out of safety concerns. They have family still living in Pakistan who would suffer at the hands of mobs in the streets if their pictures or names were to circulate on the Internet.

So we will call Joshua’s grandfather Jonas Saman. He was a community leader in Pakistan who founded and led a local development NGO. He is obsessed with the potential for technical education and training in the

trades to lift young people out of poverty. He was an activist in Pakistan from the age of 18, when he led a Catholic youth group.

"I have a strong belief that as soon as I arrive ... they will kill me."

His daughter Hannah followed in his footsteps, helping women working as domestic servants.

“I grew up watching my father as a social activist,” she said. “I raised my voice with my father.”

There are people who don’t want her or her father back in Pakistan. The turning point for the Saman family was a mob attack on the Christian neighbourhood of Lahore’s Joseph Colony in March of 2013. The attack was sparked by an unsubstantiated accusation of blasphemy against a single resident of the neighbourhood.

The mob torched 178 houses in the Christian neighbourhood. Pakistan’s courts never found anyone criminally responsible.

In the days after the attack, Saman led a protest against the blasphemy law. For that he and his family were threatened with death by the “Guardians of the Prophet’s Companions,” a group Pakistan’s government has officially listed under it’s Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, but which remains connected to powerful politicians.

“You are now entitled to be slaughtered. We will not spare you,” the Guardians told Saman.

He spent months moving from house to house in Pakistan. Eventually, his relatives and even his parish priest said he ought to take his family out of the country. At 55 he now works illegally and irregularly for Bangkok hotels and restaurants, encouraging customers from the street, handing out flyers, whatever they need him for.

The Samans have moved three times in their five years in Bangkok, trying to keep clear of the immigration police. There was another round-up on July 9, with 51 Pakistani Christians jailed.

George Naz was one of the Christians caught up in that sweep. Naz was also a protest leader back in 2013. He was hit with a fatwa calling for his death, broadcast from the mosque speakers to a crowd of over 1,000 people. Then 150 swore out a charge of blasphemy against him at the police station. “It’s a miracle I’m alive,” Naz told visitors from ORAT.

But Naz now faces the prospect of Thai authorities putting him on a plane back to Pakistan despite his United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees identity card recognizing his legitimate claim to refugee status.

“I have a strong belief that as soon as I arrive in the airport, they will kill me,” he said.

Naz isn’t paranoid.

“The blasphemy law has wide implications,” explained retired Archbishop of Lahore Lawrence Saldanha, who now lives in Toronto. “Many have died. Many have suffered. Many have left their properties, have been looted and so on. They have suffered in many ways. There’s always the threat of blasphemy which hangs over them.”

Pakistan’s blasphemy law and its attendant death penalty is matched up with a dysfunctional legal system that allows mullahs to preside as judges and gangs to threaten police who try to enforce the law.

The refugee-volunteers with Fr. Mick Kelly’s refugee ministry in Bangkok estimate 20 Pakistani Christians have died in the Immigration Detention Centre over the past five years. Hijaz Pares was one of them. He suffered two heart attacks while in immigration detention in 2016 and 2017. The second one killed him.

“On the day he died, he told authorities he was sick — asked to go to the hospital,” said his wife Shahida, who is left to care for her three children, aged three to 13,along with her in-laws and, most of all her disabled, wheelchair- bound brother-in-law Noman, 25.

Her husband wasn’t sent to hospital because the family hadn’t been able to pay the bill from his first heart attack. Instead he was sent to a dark room with a few other inmates.

“We never knew this would happen in Thailand, that we would be considered illegal immigrants,” she said. “Now I can’t sleep.”

She patrols her building at night, watching for police. Her children haven’t gone to school for four years. Thirteen-year-old Joel has shouldered the responsibility for helping his mother, including carrying Noman four floors up and down the stairs of their building when they have to go out.

The single women heading households in Bangkok have almost universally been diagnosed with depression. Peace Samuel occupies her tiny apartment with her three children and the memory of a mob that came after her for talking to women about their rights. The former Catholic school accountant volunteered on weekends with her parish, teaching poor women in villages — Christian and Muslim — about women’s rights. The wife of a village mullah attended the program and afterward spoke to Peace about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband.

When Peace sought protection for the mullah’s wife, word got back to the man. He came after Peace with a gang of his friends and followers.

"I can just pray, pray to God that He will help her..."

Outside the local hospital, the mullah’s gang grabbed Peace and began to tear her clothes.

“I was so scared. I cried. My clothes are torn and I was not able to cover myself,” she said.

Some bystanders protected her. She survived and the mullah’s threats eventually receded. But when the Joseph Colony riot took place, she was interviewed by a TV reporter. One of the mullah’s friends recognized her and began shouting threats as she was being interviewed. At her husband’s urging she fled the country with her two daughters and teenaged son. Her husband was to follow later, but then Thailand stopped issuing tourist visas to Pakistanis.

The Samuels have been apart for five years.

Like most of the Christian refugees in Bangkok, the UNHCR denied Peace refugee status. She admits she confused details in recalling the traumatic events. The team from the ORAT office still found the UNHCR decision on her case shocking and unconscionable.

The UNHCR tells The Catholic Register each case is assessed individually. It would not comment on stories circulating in the Christian refugee community about a Muslim Urdu interpreter who minimized or mistranslated testimony about blasphemy charges and mob violence.

While Canada usually relies on the UNHCR for a first assessment, ORAT can present cases to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for a separate assessment for private sponsorship.

“Two out of three (Christian refugees haven’t received UNHCR recognition) in the most dubious circumstances,” said Kelly, who has been working with the Pakistani Christian refugees for five years. “Which reflects the cultural pre-suppositions of the UNHCR that blinker it to human need, because they put these rigid expectations on people in terms of fluency in English, understanding the documentary process that’s required for refugee status — unappreciative of the fact that most of them are traumatized and that they are constantly looking backwards, whereas the UNHCR wants them to look forward and say why they can’t go home.”

{unitegallery Bangkok2019}

SAMUELS AND her three children have lived in five or six different apartments in Bangkok. The worst was a shelter where they had to wash dishes inside the bathroom, said Jass.

In their current apartment, 46-year-old Peace sleeps with her 20-year-old daughter Charlotte and 15-year-old Jass in the bed. Her son Nabeel, 22, sleeps on the floor beside them. The women spend long stretches sitting on the bed weaving strips of plastic made from sliced up water bottles into bracelets and purses. Jass volunteers to teach catechism to children at their church. Nabeel picks up work on construction sites.

Jass sees how the stress has worn her mother down.

“I can just pray, pray to God that He will help her,” she said.

Jass dreams of becoming a fashion designer and making elegant dresses for her mother.

Peace is proud of her children, who have grown up in crowded little apartments and without school.

“In every situation they are with me. They stand with me,” she said. “Sometimes we have not enough food, but they didn’t say anything.”

In Joshua’s apartment, a statue of Our Lady of Fatima and another of the Sacred Heart of Jesus sit on a high shelf, with a rosary hung between them. After his stroke, and the craniotomy that followed, Joshua’s parents went every day to the hospital to pray the rosary at their son’s bedside. Hannah, his mother, trusts everything to Mary.

“Why I love Mary is because she is the holiest woman in the world,” she said. “Because her son, our God, cannot refuse prayers to her.”

She now prays that kind Canadians will sponsor her and her family out of limbo and into a new life.

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso -- A bishop leader in Burkina Faso called on the world to stop the massacre of Christians by foreign-backed Islamist groups that are "better armed and equipped" than government forces.

"If the world continues to do nothing, the result will be the elimination of the Christian presence," said Bishop Laurent Dabire of Dori, president of the bishops' conference of Burkina Faso and Niger.

"They've slowly moved into the interior of our country, attacking the army, civil structures and the people," he said of the nongovernment forces. "Today their main target appears to be Christians. I believe they are trying to trigger an interreligious conflict."

The appeal was published Aug. 1 by Aid to the Church in Need as nongovernmental organizations in the country launched a program to help 250,000 people displaced by attacks throughout the landlocked west Africa nation.

The bishop said 20 Christians had been killed in unprovoked attacks since January. He said in the most recent incident, June 27 in Beni, villagers were forced to lie facedown by armed attackers, who found four wearing crucifixes and killed them "because they were Christians."

"After murdering them, the Islamists warned the other villagers that they too would be killed if they did not convert to Islam," Bishop Dabire said.

"Insecurity is growing constantly and has forced us to reduce our pastoral activities. It is now too dangerous to go to some areas, and I've been forced to close down two parishes," he said.

The Catholic Church makes up a fifth of the 16.5 million inhabitants of Burkina Faso, whose government signed an accord with the Vatican July 12 guaranteeing the church's legal status and agreeing to "collaborate for the moral, spiritual and material wellbeing of the human person and for the promotion of the common good."

Christian places of worship, especially in the country's mostly Muslim-inhabited north, have been targeted by jihadist groups since the October 2014 ouster of President Blaise Compaore.

Speaking July 31 in Ouagadougou, President Marc Christian Kabore praised heads of neighboring states for helping combat terrorism, but he said Burkina Faso was "paying a heavy tribute" for the attacks, which were impeding "efforts at national construction."

In his ACN interview, Bishop Dabire said the mostly foreign forces had recruited local youths with "no money, no work and no prospects," as well as "radicalized elements" who saw jihadist movements "as the expression of their Islamic faith."

He added that he felt personally hurt by the inaction of the international community "to defend Christian communities" when Islamists were receiving outside support.

"The weapons they are using were not made here in Africa," the bishop said. "They have rifles, machine guns and so much ammunition, more than the Burkina Faso army, and when they come to the villages, they shoot for hours."

WARSAW, Poland -- The president of the Polish bishops' conference condemned attacks on clergy and places of worship in the traditionally Catholic country as the church countered media accusations of inciting violence against LGBTQ groups.

Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan said that "ever more frequent attacks of hatred against believing people and priests" were a growing concern for church officials.

"So does the profanation of sacral buildings, places and objects of faith so important to Catholics," the archbishop said. "Although differences of worldview are evident in any pluralist society, they cannot justify such inhuman conduct."

His comments followed an assault July 28 on Father Aleksander Ziejewski in the sacristy of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist in the northern city of Szczecin during an attempted robbery.

Three men have been arrested in connection with the incident. Authorities said the attack occurred after the men broke into the basilica before evening Mass and demanded vestments to hold a same-sex wedding.

The incident was the latest in a wave of events that included the stabbing of priest at a church in Wroclaw and the parodying of Catholic rites and images of Mary by LGBTQ campaigners in Czestochowa, Gdansk, Krakow and other cities.

In a July 30 letter to Father Ziejewski, Archbishop Gadecki said "symbolic and physical violence" was escalating against Polish Catholics and called on "perpetrators to show restraint."

A dozen Catholic churches have been desecrated in the last two months across the country, according to the Krakow-based Polonia Christiana association.

Malgorzata Glabisz-Pniewska, a presenter with Polish Radio, told Catholic News Service July 31 the incidents were the work of small groups, often using "distasteful, provocative methods."

"Are we not seeing double standards at work when sacred symbols are profaned during [LGBTQ] parades, alongside blasphemies against God?"

However, she said that the church's "harshly negative reactions" to LGBTQ rights activists appeared to have raised the intensity of protests while church leaders had "continually portrayed LGBTQ demands as an assault on Christian culture and civilization."

In a July 29 statement the bishops' conference spokesman said the upsurge of attacks on Catholic sites was becoming "intolerable."

"In line with its Gospel summons, the church respects the dignity of every person without exception -- Catholics in Poland and around the world have a right to the same respect," Father Pawel Rytel-Andrianik said.

"We cannot fail to react to vulgar derision and lack of basic respect toward the beliefs of faithful millions hurt by these activities. We have a constitutional right to see a person's dignity respected and symbols of our faith protected," he said.

Meanwhile, Polish media commentators and representatives of LGBTQ groups accused Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda of Bialystok of inciting violence against a July 20 "Equality March" in the eastern city, during which police used stun grenades and pepper spray to hold back aggressive counterprotesters claiming to be protecting the Catholic cathedral.

In a July 26 analysis, Poland's Catholic Information Agency, KAI, confirmed that Archbishop Wojda, who later condemned the violence, had warned local Catholics weeks earlier about the march, but added that the use of rosaries and crosses by some anti-LGBTQ demonstrators had encountered "great distaste."

Father Andrzej Debski, Bialystok archdiocesan spokesman, said July 30 the Equality March had "unleashed actions of evil" on both sides, and rejected claims the church itself had "caused the aggression."

"Other Equality Marches this year in Warsaw, Gdansk and Poznan, organized in the name of tolerance and anti-discrimination, have shown just the opposite: the enmity of LGBT circles towards Christianity," Father Debski said in a KAI statement.

"Are we not seeing double standards at work," he said, "when sacred symbols are profaned during these parades, alongside blasphemies against God?"

WASHINGTON -- The world is "filled with people in need," including the unborn, trafficking victims, those "suffering the agonies of addiction and abuse, people with disabilities and still others facing famine and disease, said U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey.

"In some areas, slow progress is being made," he said in an address during the State Department's recent second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington. "New treatments are developed. Laws are passed, like the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which I authored to protect victims and aggressively prosecute those who profit from human trafficking."

But at the same time, "there has been little progress in ending religious persecution," Smith said. "In fact, in some places like China, it's getting worse."

"The world of faith is under siege," he said. "We are at a tipping point -- threats are multiplying by the day making this ministerial, and comprehensive follow-up especially necessary and urgent."

Smith said people and governments around the governments cannot stand silent while so many groups right now are being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

He listed the situation of several, including: Rohingya Muslims being brutally "cleansed" from Myanmar; Nigerian Christians facing "horrifying violence"; Iraqi Christians and Yazidis facing genocide at the hands of the Islamic State; and over a million Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims being interned by the Chinese government.

He also said the "anti-Semitism spreading like a cancer around the globe" cannot be allowed "to fester."

"The terrible, largely unacknowledged reality is this: We are witnessing in the early 21st century an international mega-crisis in religious freedom," Smith said. "Religious persecution is festering and exploding around the world."

The crisis is creating "tens of millions of victims and undermines liberty, prosperity and peace," he added. "More than ever before, strong international leadership and diplomacy on a sustainable basis are needed to address religious freedom violations globally."

He praised the work of Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Sam Brownback, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, for organizing the ministerial but also working year-round "to better protect all people of all faiths to more freely exercise their fundamental human right to believe in God, the transcendent and the eternal."

He praised the State Department for "vigorously using the tools" embedded in laws such as the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, which Smith wrote, to identify violations of religious freedom in nations around the world, call out the perpetrators and hold governments to account.

Smith noted that he has dedicated his life in the U.S. Congress -- the past 39 years -- "to fighting for religious freedom and giving a voice to the voiceless."

He works on the issue -- and many others -- in his capacity as senior member of House Foreign Affairs Committee, ranking member of House Global Human Rights Subcommittee and co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.

As co-chair of the Lantos commission, he held a hearing June 27 on violations of the right to freedom of religion of minority Christian populations around the world.

What opened his own eyes to religious persecution, he said, was a book he read 40 years ago: "Tortured for Christ" by Romanian pastor Richard Wurmbrand.

"More than any other, this book introduced me to the horrors faced by Christians living under communism," Smith said. "Pastor Wurmbrand's account of the 14 years he spent in communist prisons -- the torture, the solitary confinement, the mental cruelty and starvation -- was both gripping yet, paradoxically, hopeful."

"His story detailed horrible suffering," he added, "but it was also a story of endurance, courage and an indomitable spirit."

WASHINGTON -- Despite the blasphemy law that has roiled Christians in Pakistan, the government has not executed anyone found guilty at trial.

Updated 2019-07-23:Updated headline.

However, 70 people accused of blasphemy have been murdered in extrajudicial actions by mobs, said Peter Jacob, executive director of the Center for Social Justice based in Lahore, Pakistan.

"The lethality of the law is not only tested by the law but by the people," Jacob said during a mid-July interview with Catholic News Service.

Jacob was in Washington to attend the U.S. State Department's Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, as was Rubina Feroze Bhatti, a founding member and current general secretary of Taangh Wasaib Organization. The organization is a rights-based development group working for interfaith harmony and gender equality in addressing religious intolerance, sectarianism and discriminatory laws against women and minorities.

Christians fear both the loss of their livelihood and displacement because the Pakistani law is "vague" on what constitutes an insult to Islam or Muhammad, its founder, Jacob said.

"There is this tremendous struggle to have this law either amended or the effect of the law to be neutralized by parallel legislation introducing safeguards to abuse," he added.

Jacob cited what he called "the Gojra incident" in 2009, in which six Christians were burned alive, 140 houses were destroyed, and hundreds of Christians displaced by mobs after an insult to Muhammad was perceived. "After this incident a judicial inquiry was carried out in addition to the normal inquiry. This inquiry brought about 10 recommendations which have not been heeded. Successive governments have not heeded the results of these recommendations," he said.

"There should be an implementation of a judicial inquiry which is independent and carried out by a high-court judge," said Jacob, who for 26 years prior to his service with the Center for Social Justice was involved with the Pakistani Catholic bishops' National Commission for Justice and Peace.

Bhatti spoke of harassment by the Pakistani government, which at one point shut down her organization.

"There were five organizations banned by the government, and four of them were headed by the females," she said. "Being a minority woman, we have to climb two mountains of discrimination and disparity, as a woman and a minority."

Taangh Wasaib was later unbanned, but "we have some restrictions," Bhatti told CNS. "We are restricted in our work, our area of operation, we can't operate in certain districts. We focus more on livelihood projects and climate change. But if we need to work on advocacy, we have to be part of bigger networks."

Jacob alluded to "a period of struggling, of surveillance. The government of Pakistan has become very conscious of the presence of NGOs and INGOs (international nongovernmental organizations). CRS (Catholic Relief Services) has been closed, Caritas Ireland, they have been closed, they have not been allowed to operate in Islamabad."

Christian leaders in Pakistan "asserted and insisted on equal rights of assembly, association, all civil rights," Jacob added. "Now I would say it's a flicker of hope (that) exists in the fact that, due to this resistance, now the government Is considering allowance" for CRS to operate. "They're applying again."

Bhatti outlined a preferred future for both the short and long term for religious minorities in Pakistan.

"Our struggle is that we are working for equal opportunities and equal rights for all citizens of Pakistan without any discrimination, without any fear, without any insecurity," she said. "Our approach is two-pronged. We start with basic and strategic needs, particularly focused in on minority rights. I'm in the church, even the faith-based organizations, they focus more on basic needs like education, employment, livelihood, health.

"For if we leave it to equal status, we need to focus more on creating a system where minorities in general, and minority women particularly, can take part in decision-making in the grassroots and the national level as well."

She added, "We need our institutions back, but we need the presence of religious minorities in all structures, public structures, public institutions and the like. Now we have very few women -- one senator and one female member in the National Assembly. It's good to, I'll say, showcase that kind of thing. It's kind of cosmetic."

Bhatti said, "Maybe it's a baby step, but we need to adopt a systematic approach." She said she and Jacob were "establishing a leadership school educating the political workers for all the political parties. ... integrating them with the mainstream political structures. They will come up with a vision for the strategies and understanding of the context."

]]>InternationalMon, 22 Jul 2019 15:23:58 -0400Pakistani Christian looks to Canada for help after death threatshttps://www.catholicregister.org/item/29932-canada-to-be-asked-to-aid-pakistani-christian-facing-death-threats
https://www.catholicregister.org/item/29932-canada-to-be-asked-to-aid-pakistani-christian-facing-death-threats

BANGKOK, THAILAND -- A plea has been issued for Canada to rescue a Pakistani Christian refugee who is in hiding after a viral video calling on jihadi fighters to kill him swept through Bangkok's refugee community.

The appeal was made to Canada’s ambassador in Bangkok, Donica Pottie, after Australia rejected an emergency asylum appeal from Faraz Pervaiz, a prominent defender of Christian rights. It comes two months after Canada gave asylum to Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman forced into hiding from Muslim extremists following false accusations of blasphemy.

Pervaiz is a Pakistani Christian refugee who fled to Bangkok after being accused in Pakistan of blasphemy under laws which can result in a death sentence. He has several fatwas against him, calling for him to be killed.

His location in Bangkok was revealed last week in a video released on social media that went viral. Following death threats by phone and text he moved his family to a secret location outside of the city.

The video posted to Facebook, YouTube and several WhatsApp groups called for jihadi fighters to travel to Bangkok and kill Pervaiz. Several mullahs attached “fatwas,” or religious rulings, to the video to endorse killing Pervaiz.

“She's saying (in the video) this is the responsibility of every Muslim in this world to find me, and to kill me,” Pervaiz told The Catholic Register. “Since this (video) proclamation, the danger is that the jihadis are coming, day by day. Once they come to know exactly where I am, it takes one hour.”

Pervaiz, accompanied by his wife, three children and his parents, is being supported by Australian Jesuit Fr. Michael Kelly.

“The would-be assassins continue to ring and assure Faraz that they’ll find him and kill him and his family,” said Kelly in an e-mail. “I’d take them at their word.”

A long-time Bangkok resident and advocate for refugee rights, Kelly is assisting the Office for Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto to resettle up to 63 Pakistani Christian families through Canada's private sponsorship program. The number of refugees headed to Canada will depend on how many dioceses and parishes agree to make the financial and volunteer commitment to resettle them, but that process takes an average of two years. Kelly is seeking immediate action to rescue Pervaiz.

He appealed to the Australian government in a July 18 e-mail to Ambassador Allan McKinnon. After an initially positive response, the request was denied on July 20 without an explanation.

“Next stop, the Canadian Ambassador,” said Kelly in an e-mail to The Catholic Register.

Pervaiz and his family are hiding in a one-room apartment, staying indoors 24 hours a day.

For more than a year, Pervaiz has had a price on his head of 10 million Pakistani rupees (about $82,000) issued by Pakistan’s populist, conservative political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik — the same party that urged Muslims to kill Bibi after she was acquitted of blasphemy by Pakistan's supreme court. Following several months in hiding, Bibi was granted asylum and in May resettled at a secret location in Canada.

Pervaiz, who fled Pakistan in 2014, and his family had been relatively safe in Bangkok because Pakistani extremists thought he was in the Netherlands. Tehreek-e-Labbaik even organized a rally in front of the Dutch embassy in Islamabad last year, calling on the Netherlands government to return Pervaiz to Pakistan.

But he was discovered to be living in Bangkok and, after his address was revealed in the video, Pervaiz was in immediate fear for his family and his life.

The video was made by a Pakistani Muslim refugee, well known among Bangkok’s 1,500 Christian refugees, named Saira Ismail. Several Pakistani Christians told The Catholic Register Ismail often socialized with the Christians in Bangkok, attending Church dances and asking for food and rent aid.

Pervaiz said Ismail had requested aid from the small Christian church his family attends, but the church had no funds to help her.

Ismail's video begins by displaying her identity card issued by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

The UNHCR office in Bangkok contacted Google and Facebook and eventually succeeded in having the video blocked. The refugee agency said it was unable to comment specifically on Ismail’s case or her actions.

“UNHCR counsels all its asylum seekers and refugees regularly to respect Thai laws at all times given that asylum seekers and refugees are subject to Thai laws while residing in the Kingdom of Thailand,” said UNHCR Thailand spokesperson Jennifer Harrison.

“A host government shoulders the main responsibility for protecting and assisting refugees on its territory. UNHCR works to provide support until the particular government can assume this responsibility on its own,” Harrison said.

Pervaiz said a UN official advised him to leave Thailand. Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 Geneva convention on refugees and regards refugees as illegals.

“The UN protection officer said to me, ‘Why don't you cross the border and go to Burma. Why don't you go to another country. Muslims are everywhere, so we cannot protect you,’” Pervaiz told The Catholic Register.

“I said, what are you talking about? You are not a peanut. You are a big elephant in this world. … I said you are putting my life in danger again.”

Pervaiz has been a target of Pakistan’s religious conservatives since he began speaking out in defence of Christians after a 2013 mob attack on a Christian neighbourhood in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab province. He led protests demanding action from the police and ran a blog in which he challenged both the politics and theology of Islam, presented his own interpretations of the Quran and criticized the Prophet. His father was a political leader in the Christian community and was nominated to sit in Parliament.

“We are not criminals. Our only crime is that we speak against their brutality,” Pervaiz said. “I don't have words to explain to you their barbarism towards us. How Christians are marginalized every day. No one raised this issue.”

In 2017 an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan acquitted 106 Muslims accused of torching Christian houses in the 2013 mob attack.